Friday 1st August
On Friday evening we had a few drinks at The Greys and a fish and chip supper which we ate overlooking the harbour in proper tourist style. On Saturday afternoon we walked to Craster where we had booked a meal at The Jolly Fisherman . After having our excellent seafood with a nice bottle of wine we walked back along the fields to Dunstanburgh Castle and cheekily jumped the gate to show them the interior. The views are spectacular from up there and the balmy weather made it a pleasant walk.
On Sunday, after giving Caroline her present of a small mixed media still life for her birthday, we set off for Anglesey, a day late. It proved to be a long, busy trip, even on a Sunday. It took us 7hours with a stop for a quick lunch at Tebay.
As I said in last week’s blog, I last visited Anglesey in 1979 on an archaeology trip. I was expecting to cross The Menai Straits over a suspension bridge but we ended up on Anglesey without realising! I must have had the rail bridge in my mind because I never noticed the road crossing!
We arrived at teatime. The cottages were lovely with a large field for the dogs and a distant view of the sea.
I’m not going to bore you with details of our holiday. To summarise. I wanted to go to 2 specific places. I wanted to visit South Stack lighthouse, which I remember from 1979 as being spectacular and I wasn’t disappointed. It was spectacular on the promontory. We had lots of photos and ice cream. I also wanted to visit Beaumaris, a classic Welsh castle. The town was very busy. We didn’t go in the castle but I took photos. The views across the Menai Straits to Northern Snowdonia were atmospheric with low cloud and the tide out.
During the week we stopped at several beautiful bays. On Thursday we spent a couple of hours on the huge sandy bay at Porth Twwyn Mawr with the Skerris lighthouse on the horizon and ferries coming into Holyhead with Holyhead mountain as a backdrop.
During the week I sketched everywhere we went and supplemented the sketches with 4 lighthouses and 15 standing stones plus other archaeological sites. I didn’t get the paints out at all.
I would love to do some larger paintings of Anglesey from my sketches but I have no outlet for them and it could be considered a waste of time. There is some spectacular coastal scenery around Anglesey and I might just paint some stuff for myself.